if on the odd occasion something stoops
to sweep aside your granite benchmark
boil your sleeping shadow’s guts
and leave you with a burnt medallion

if this thing blinks
out of a shot-through animal eye

or if it wakes from tickled loins

or in the judgement of your ape

or in the nightmare of your child

whether it touch you like a tongue
or taste you like a knife

even if you understand

27 November 1976